To call it a disappointment would mean that I wouldíve needed to have anticipation. I didnít.

But itís my favorite comic book from childhood, and made by a director I have quite a lot of respect for. So what? The idea Ö the i-i-i-i-deaaaaaaa is a bad one! Or so it might have gone back-and-forth if I were the Hulk and Bruce Banner. Wait, you mean youíre not clear on who or what Banner and the Hulk are? The movie didnít clarify it for you? Oh, I see, youíve read the comic book, but itís been years and the movieís gainsay has confused you based on what you remember. Maybe that would be because the movie scarcely took the rough physical likeliness of the Hulk and a couple of charactersí names and then completely rewrote the myth, the origin, the story, the what-have-you thatís possibly left and has the ability to be changed as well. Perhaps it is because this was my favorite comic that I care so much, that when other people complain about their favorite novels or comic books with changes that it is I who cannot identify. But I ask you this: with your favorites, is it more or less than taking the title and then filling in a whole new creation, a whole new work? That the story here is so totally its own entity, it doesnít deserve recapitulation. (At least the father-figure, created solely for the movie, helps to explain Nick Nolteís shock-hairdo following his last arrest.) Ang Lee still wants to make a comic book movie apparently ó why else make the effort with a plodding prologue, comic book lettering for credits, split-screens and super-imposed shots to give the appearance of panels, morph editing, etc.? (True enough, as the horse is let out of the gate, the visuals have promise, only for them to be pile-driven into annoyance, be forgotten, and then returned to once again for vexation.) One can understand Leeís desire for his films to be seen, for his ability to work with respected actors ó but heís had that since his first English-language film, Sense and Sensibility. He had it again with The Ice Storm and with Ride with the Devil, and his position grew in even larger international acclaim with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. So why squander it on a lame, big-budget studio project? It lacks his signature, his style, and it is certainly his least accomplished cast to date. (Notwithstanding the veneration of Sam Elliott, it is far from a good performance.) The movie seems to be rather an antithesis to what Lee has worked for, opting instead to go for all that is big and expensive ó even the Hulk (note the missing ďincredibleĒ) must be movie-sized to immense proportions. No longer is a seven or eight-foot behemoth large enough to pose a threat for a summer movie audience, that he must be upgraded to brobdingnagian status, some twenty-odd-feet. Even at that, the special effects are a joke; Hulk is hardly a threatening cinematic icon, plainly distinguished by videogame-worthy computer animation. He has nothing on, say, any model of the Terminators, and the choice to go digital over live-action is a big mistake. (Truly, the show, which was thrown a bone by having a cameo of Lou Ferrigno and Hulk-creator Stan Lee, had more impact insofar as the beast of burden, the consequences of being the Hulk. Lee manipulates the alienation theme to fit within his own oeuvre, exploring the freeing feeling of rage.) In any event, there is one very nicely detailed (if not preposterous) scene in which the Hulk battles some mutant dogs, and it isnít so much the action itself that works, as it is the transplanting vicarious nature of it ó almost sure that when the mutant poodle barks at Jennifer Connelly hiding inside a car, the fog and spit that covers the windshield is in your face, too. With Eric Bana.